Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Eastwood, who surely knows better, indulges in countless crass stupidities in the movie. There's the obligatory somber scene of shirtless buffed-up SEAL Kyle and his heartthrob wife Sienna Miller gasping at the televised horror of the 9/11 attacks. Next thing you know, Kyle is in Iraq actually fighting al-Qaeda – as if there was some logical connection between 9/11 and Iraq.

Which of course there had not been, until we invaded and bombed the wrong country and turned its moonscaped cities into a recruitment breeding ground for… you guessed it, al-Qaeda. They skipped that chicken-egg dilemma in the film, though, because it would detract from the "human story."

Eastwood plays for cheap applause and goes super-dumb even by Hollywood standards when one of Kyle's officers suggests that they could "win the war" by taking out the evil sniper who is upsetting America's peaceful occupation of Sadr City.

Look, I get it's a movie. Movies end. They need an ending, and the sort of 4GW morass into which Iraq has ever so predictably descended isn't suitable. So, it's understandable that Eastwood turns it into a story with a coherent ending, right down to the dramatic mano-a-mano that is conventional in these sorts of war movies. And it is refreshing to see Hollywood take the side of an American soldier for a change.

But that doesn't make that line any more intelligent. It just doesn't.

138 Comments:

I wish I could enjoy the movie, but I didn't like the lying that led us into the war, I didn't like the war, I didn't like what the American troops were doing there, I don't like Kyle's comments about Iraqis, and I don't like anyone trying to sugar coat the real disaster that war and the Afghanistan war and all the other wars have been.

I noticed that Taibbi's piece appeared in Rolling Stone. I think people should start putting an adjective before Rolling Stone. You know, like whenever the media refer to FN and Marine Le Pen, they use the adjective 'far-right' or 'extremists'. There needs to be an identifier before Rolling Stone to impart the fact that it prints fake stories, aka lies.

I really looked forward to this movie when I saw the previews. I didn't know anything about Mr. Kyle other than he was a sniper from here in Texas who had been tragically murdered. Some guys at local clubs who shoot long range matches knew him, but I never met the guy.

But I didn't know any of the controversy regarding his book, Mr. Ventura etc.

Now this. I will probably wait for it on Netflix now unless someone local asks me to tag along and watch it with them..... I usually enjoy war movies, even B grade ones, and the subject of long range precision shooting interests me, even in fictional depictions....

I thought Iraq was a 9th dimensional chess move. Start with killing a bunch of Muslims speeding up their radicalization, which will in turn allow you to justify exterminating them when they do something like detonate a dirty bomb in London or NYC.

Kyle told a number of tall tales back in the states, and made up a story about him and Ventura. Ventura managed to prove it was a lie and he is going to collect a big chunk of change for it. Full details here...

So, it's understandable that Eastwood turns it into a story with a coherent ending, right down to the dramatic mano-a-mano that is conventional in these sorts of war movies. And it is refreshing to see Hollywood take the side of an American soldier for a change.

So I guess Seth Rogen was right after all in his tweet comparing the movie to the Nazi sniper propaganda film found in the larger film Inglourious Basterds. Ouch.

What was the controversy regarding him and Ventura?

Chris Kyle basically lied in his book that Ventura and him were in some bar fight after Ventura said that America "deserves to lose a few." Ventura called him on his bullshit and took him to court for libel.

Oh and Ventura isn't really collecting any money. All of it went to his attorney's fees. Now Chris Kyle gets all the sympathy just because he happened to die from a twitching PTSD marksman at a firing range before the suit was settled. Fuck this gay Earth.

Eastwood plays for cheap applause and goes super-dumb even by Hollywood standards when one of Kyle's officers suggests that they could "win the war" by taking out the evil sniper who is upsetting America's peaceful occupation of Sadr City.

American Soldier on the telephone at 5:50: Hello Hitler. I want to surrender.

I don't trust a single thing Rolling Stone says about the movie. The reviewer could have watched an episode of My Little Pony while high, for all I know. Did he also say that the movie raped a co-ed in a medieval dungeon while she screamed "Forsooth! My virtue! Ah, fie!"?

I'll probably go now even though I don't have any interest in desert pictures, just to see how badly RS choked this one away.

I don't trust a single thing Rolling Stone says about the movie. The reviewer could have watched an episode of My Little Pony while high, for all I know. Did he also say that the movie raped a co-ed in a medieval dungeon while she screamed "Forsooth! My virtue! Ah, fie!"?

I'll probably go now even though I don't have any interest in desert pictures, just to see how badly RS choked this one away.

Given that I know a lot of people joined because of 9/11 and found themselves fighting in Iraq, I am not sure they have nothing to do with each other from a story perspective. Moreover, any movie that was not rah rah about all that would not have been true to Mr. Kyle himself. I think a lot of criticisms of the movie boil down to the fact that a movie representing how Mr. Kyle presented himself and what he believed should not have been made. Given how many really stupid anti-war movies have been made (Hurt Locker?), I think it only balances the cosmic scales for a movie about Mr. Kyle to be made.

That said, I have no plans on watching the movie. To me, how one man killed a hundred plus rookies does not make for a compelling story.

Alan Turing would probably be mortified at being celebrated now largely on account of his love for the cock.

Tommy Flowers played an equally important role at Bletchley Park. Turing was a mathematician. Flowers was an engineer. It was Flowers who built the Colossus computer, which made it possible to break Enigma.

Like Turing, Flowers was treated poorly by the British government after the war. They gave him £1000, not even enough to cover his personal expenses on Colossus. All his work in designing the world's first electronic programmable computer was buried by the Official Secrets Act. He wasn't able to patent any of his breakthroughs or even tell anyone what he had achieved. He tried to get a bank loan to build another electronic computer and was turned down because the bank believed it couldn't be done.

Had he been an American, he'd most likely have ended up a millionaire. Because he was a Brit, he went back to work for the Post Office.

But Flowers' story doesn't have the tragic homosexual suicide angle, so he's not lionised like Turing.

The hijackers were trained at an Iraqi installation, about 20 miles South-Southeast of Baghdad, a facility near Salman Pak, with rolling stock and an airliner fuselage, for the purpose of training Iraqi police in anti-terrorist techniques (as if any airline hijacker had ever had goals which were contrary to Iraq or its neighbors.

Of course, you can't train police in anti-hijacker techniques without first training another group of men to BE hijackers. 19 out of 20 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia...and the Saudi/Iraqi border makes the US border with Mexico look like the epitome of border security. And Hussein had ties with suicide-bomber movements (he routinely paid something on the order of $25,000 to families of those who carried out their attacks).

Iraq was also flagrantly violating the 1991 cease fire...on a daily basis... for year after year. If your defeated enemies can be allowed to flaunt their agreements with you, then what about trade partners? And the penealty for violating a cease fire...is... ENDING the Cease Fire i.e. Resumption of Hostilities.

For diplomacy to be worth ANYTHING, Hussein had to be put away, if for no other reason than to serve as a warning to others not to violate their agreements with us.

No I am not a bankster, I work for a living. I just have a problem with people who revel in the untimely death of a man with a wife and children to support.Seriously, look at this face and tell me it is not the face of a douche.

I must say at times it's hard to tell the libertarian/conservative griping about "rah-rah propaganda" from the leftists. Why is it so fucking horrible that someone FOR ONCE made a movie which doesn't blacken and demean America and its armed services?

The hijackers were trained at an Iraqi installation, about 20 miles South-Southeast of Baghdad, a facility near Salman Pak, with rolling stock and an airliner fuselage, for the purpose of training Iraqi police in anti-terrorist techniques (as if any airline hijacker had ever had goals which were contrary to Iraq or its neighbors.

Of course, you can't train police in anti-hijacker techniques without first training another group of men to BE hijackers. 19 out of 20 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia...and the Saudi/Iraqi border makes the US border with Mexico look like the epitome of border security. And Hussein had ties with suicide-bomber movements (he routinely paid something on the order of $25,000 to families of those who carried out their attacks).

Iraq was also flagrantly violating the 1991 cease fire...on a daily basis... for year after year. If your defeated enemies can be allowed to flaunt their agreements with you, then what about trade partners? And the penealty for violating a cease fire...is... ENDING the Cease Fire i.e. Resumption of Hostilities.

For diplomacy to be worth ANYTHING, Hussein had to be put away, if for no other reason than to serve as a warning to others not to violate their agreements with us.

They were Screwing it up by the Numbers... which is why they got compromised (didn't set up a security perimeter, and started their ops without ANY established commo with their ONLY suport), and when they were, why they didn't have a plan on how to deal with it.

Any Army NCO would be ashamed to admit they screw up that badly so as to get ALL of their mean KIA'd.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that "Postwar findings support the April 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that there was no credible reporting on al-Qa'ida training at Salman Pak or anywhere else in Iraq. There have been no credible reports since the war that Iraq trained al-Qa'ida operatives at Salman Pak to conduct or support transnational terrorist operations."[25] The CIA and DIA both told the Committee that their postwar exploration of the facility "has yielded no indications that training of al-Qa'ida linked individuals took place there. In June 2006, the DIA told the Committee that it has 'no credible reports that non-Iraqis were trained to conduct or support transnational terrorist operations at Salman Pak after 1991.

Dont care if boomers make more movies for boomers. Anything Jesse and Chris makes me less inclined to tune in but I am familiar enough with the saga.

The same (pervy hollyweriders or rational types like Clint) americant film industry begging for our dollars to fund the tribe of SAGS, tell us we cannot have self defense but make a snipe movie while their own families are going to be safe if TSHF, grand, let the flames begin...

There's the obligatory somber scene of shirtless buffed-up SEAL Kyle and his heartthrob wife Sienna Miller gasping at the televised horror of the 9/11 attacks. Next thing you know, Kyle is in Iraq actually fighting al-Qaeda.

This is neither stupid nor crass. Thousands of men enlisted under the misperception that they'd get a shot at Al-Qaeda. The fact that the U.S. created AQ (or better, a vacuum for AQ) in Iraq after the fact was irrelevant to those guys.

Active SEALs do a lot of stuff without their shirt if you haven't noticed. The critic starts off on two bad feet: working for Trolling Stone, then opening with crass stupidities that aren't crass or stupid. (The later stupidities sound stupid...but at that point I absolutely require my own look to verify his version of events.)

Like I said, I hate desert pictures (too washed out and they make me thirsty) and aside from Donnie Darko (which was unintentional) hate 9/11 pictures. But I'll go now if RS tells me not to. I'll probably think it is stupid, but not as stupid as working for RS.

I see the problem here. Taibbi is a quasi-libertarian. He has not grokked the fact that when SJW's attack, you have to present a solidarity, not give them ammunition.

He is so deluded that he thinks there is an actual conversation going on.

How do you get up that high and not know that?

Hey Josh..... Dennis Hopper:

"Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he'll... uh... well, you'll say "hello" to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you. He won't even notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in a corner, and he'll say, "Do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you"... I mean I'm... no, I can't... I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's... he's a great man! I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas..."

I'm never a fan of reviews that are little more than a complaint against the filmmakers for not making the movie the reviewer wanted to see. I disagree with holding it against Eastwood / Cooper for not making a movie about Cheney and Bush, that Taibbi would have preferred. If that's the movie Taibbi wants, as a writer, he should write the script and try to get it produced.

I'm not fan of the Iraq war, and am generally a fan of Taibbi's work - especially his Wall Street / Banking stuff - but the degree of cynicism in his writing leads me to doubt whether he would ever be able to recognize a genuine hero. He's the type of writer that will always see the flaws, always manage to find a reason why we shouldn't celebrate some given person.

It is not absurd to make a film - tell the story - about the most prolific sniper in US military history. That simple fact alone suggests a compelling story audiences might want to see. Taibbi's inability to grasp that is his problem.

I didn't think it was a dumb movie. I thought it was a intelligent and true movie ABOUT dumb people. There is a big difference.

American Sniper shows, with surprising honesty, how even the most alpha of K-selected men is betrayed by a feminized and r-selected society that sends them to a confused and conflicted death in proxy fights on behalf of the Cathedral. Betrayed at home by wives and abroad by bullets. It is a love song for good men done wrong by - who are yet culpable due to their own stupidity and blue pill conditioning.

That the protagonist has a moderately non-tragic end does not detract from the absolute devastation suffered by his lesser peers, including his brother and his eventual killer.

I loved the movie. It's the best that Hollywood can do. I don't think Eastwood pulled punches on the ambiguities and conflicts that reveal our narrative, even if he didn't explicitly endorse that narrative. There is no happy ending - it is all for nothing.

In that light, the hero's death at the end is perfect - just another K vs K proxy conflict, for a triumphant Cathedral, with all the outer party morons waving their limp flags at the parade of their defeat.

The real climax of the movie was the bitch mother of Biggles reading her son's anti-war letter, a direct slap in the face to the K military tradition, which silently sucks up the pain while the woman speaks from her pedestal, tarnishing her logs sacrifice and insulting his brethren. The unraveling of the American K.

For fucks sake, people, it's a movie loosely based on a book that was loosely based on Chris Kyle. What the hell did you expect it to be? An anti-war documentary? Enjoy it for the fiction it is. I swear, some of you probably watch The Sands of Iwo Jima and complain because it didn't show how the U.S. pushed Japan towards war or that it didn't show Ira Hayes three sheets into the wind when he helped raise the flag over Suribachi.

Also, it is clear that a number of officers did believe things just like that line. If we just take this one city, if we just complete this surge, etc., we'll win the war. It's dangerous to assume a director believes all the lines in his movies. Eastwood's output over the last 20+ years is decidedly anti-war, or at least certainly questions the value of violence by wondering whether it was worth it, and his personal comments about Iraq over the years suggest he is no run-of-the-mill rush-to-war neocon. Maybe he put that line in the movie to represent the line of thinking held by a number of officers and trusted that the audience would recognize, in hindsight, just how stupid such thinking really was. It is a mistake to project those lines directly onto Eastwood himself, when the simpler explanation is sufficient.

Anyway, I didn't take the line as being a stand-in for Eastwood's personal views, as much as being representative of a fairly common mindset that did/does exist. Maybe I'm wrong....

I also walked away perceiving the story as a tragedy, in part because of Eastwood's prior output. It would make little sense for Eastwood to spend two decades questioning the ultimate value of violence only to then produce this as a piece of jingoistic propaganda.

Kyle's story is compelling. Violent warriors are inherently compelling as subjects of stories. Eastwood did a good job of simply trying to tell his story, and it would be a mistake to use Kyle's story to make a bunch of political jabs at Bush / Cheney. Wise viewers will be able to put together that, in the end, the leaders of our country wasted the talents of one of America's most prolific warriors, getting basically nothing in return for all of his sacrifices and service*.

*Note: I don't claim to have any idea whether in the final judgment God will welcome Kyle into heaven or cast him into hell. But he did serve his country honorably here on earth, and his story is worth telling. A lesser director could have easily screwed it up....

I saw it today and thought it was pretty damn good. Its a f*cking movie people, of course they play it up and add stupid scenes and manufactured untrue bullsh*t. Did I enjoy the entertainment value, and was it worth 5$? Yep.

“American Sniper” is refreshingly told only from Kyle’s point of view. He reminds a doubting comrade that we’re fighting these “evil fucking savages” (terrorists) in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them in San Diego. And Eastwood doesn’t flinch from showing these evil fucking savages for the evil fucking savages they are. You won’t soon forget watching terrorist mastermind Zarqawi’s chief enforcer, a monster nicknamed The Butcher, slowly torture and murder a young boy with a power drill.

War is ugly and it’s not pretty watching our guys kick in doors. But there are bad guys behind those doors, and no matter how bad those guys might be, Eastwood makes sure the audience knows Americans don’t carry power drills or take lives out of any motive other than self-defense.

There is nothing even close to moral equivalence in “America Sniper,” only the truth: that there is no equivalence between the barbarians who target the innocent and the American heroes who target those who target the innocent.

He reminds a doubting comrade that we’re fighting these “evil fucking savages” (terrorists) in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them in San Diego.

I put this level of stupidity right up there with people interviewed for the Jimmy Kimmel show telling us Martin Luther King is still alive.

There is nothing even close to moral equivalence in “America Sniper,” only the truth: that there is no equivalence between the barbarians who target the innocent and the American heroes who target those who target the innocent.

And this is simply regurgitating tribal allegiances without any introspection or contemplation whatsoever.

This film doesn't have the gravitas of an Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket.

Apocalypse Now? That's a of a story that takes place on a different continent by a cast and crew who were stoned the entire time (and it shows). It has one or two good scenes, but most of it's crap and he desperately needed an editor. Gravitas? What are you smoking?

And FMJ was pretty much over after boot camp. They could have ended it there and it would have been a better movie.

American Sniper shows, with surprising honesty, how even the most alpha of K-selected men is betrayed by a feminized and r-selected society that sends them to a confused and conflicted death in proxy fights on behalf of the Cathedral. Betrayed at home by wives and abroad by bullets. It is a love song for good men done wrong by - who are yet culpable due to their own stupidity and blue pill conditioning.

Exactly. Don't join the current military. "I fight for the welfare state, single mothers, and puppies."

Earth to paradox: the US military only accepts willing volunteers. The Selective Service still exists, but literally nobody has been drafted since 1972. (I know that well because I was in the first cohort--those turning 18 in 1972--from which no one was drafted.)

It's impossible to view American Sniper on purely artistic merits. Take quick scan of Rotten Tomatoes. The reviews that are negative are almost all politically driven. Bleeds red, white and blue in the worst ways. American war films have moved past this jingoism.

Jingoism is in fact a reliable measure of how healthy and vibrant a society is.

The fact that Americans in general are still capable of any jingoism what so ever, gives me a spoon full of hope for my people.

It’s not surprising that the most prestigious Republican in the movie business, Clint Eastwood, directed the hit Navy SEAL movie American Sniper. But I hadn’t realized until researching my review in Taki’s Magazine that the property had originally been developed by the most prestigious Democrat in the movie business, Steven Spielberg.

But if you dig a little more, it turns out that Spielberg is a lifelong passionate shooter, although it’s practically impossible to find a picture anywhere on the Web of Spielberg shooting a gun. Above is the only one I could find, from the “Clients” page of the Italian gunmaker Fabbri.

"There is nothing even close to moral equivalence in “America Sniper,” only the truth: that there is no equivalence between the barbarians who target the innocent and the American heroes who target those who target the innocent."

All of these Sea Stories apparently started in bars after the third round in a bar and began with the words, "no shit, there I was." No one who has met a SEAL would be expecting what comes next to be anywhere near the truth. In fact I think the SEALs screen for it.

It should be noted that Jesse Ventura has his own issues with truth. In fact its a major issue between him and the SEALs and was likley the underlying base for the issues that lead to the lawsuit.

You see despite what Jesse says, the SEALs don't like him. I never met a single one that does. The issue is stolen honor, Ventura wasn't a SEAL he was UDT. Now I can understand why he would quickly get tired of explaining that the selection and training for UDT was identical to that of the SEALs. And that UDT was rolled into the SEALs in 1983 anyway, so what's the difference?

The difference is that when Jesse was in the UDT the SEALs were getting shot to shit in Vietnam. So badly in fact that the SEALs started asking for volunteers from UDT. Ventura has never provided proof that he was one these and it is generally regarded within that community as being a liar and a thief of honor.

Not that I don't have my own issues with the SEALs, Don't get me started on Red Cell.

It may be "only a movie," but given how video dramatizations are the bases of huge numbers of Americans' world view, "American Sniper" is likely to be one of today's Ministry of Truth elements of American Exceptionalism.

Such Chauvinism predisposes people to march in lockstep behind arrogant fool "leaders" because it blinds them to facts that falsify their "we're superior" mythology.

The very things that made America a great place to live are those being rapidly destroyed by the myth-spinners.

I remember him bitching to higher that we had cheated on the terms of his dumb ass security test.

It was stupid to run that kind of ridiculous bullshit in an Exclusion Area. One where the ROE specifically stated that if someone takes a hostage trying to remove these "materials" from the Exclusion Area" shoot through the hostage.

Moreover, It’s a freaking *movie dramatization of a book* about a military man, not a real hero of the People truly worthy of lionization such as Harvey Milk or St Trayvon-the-Martyr.

Media complex whores are pissed that the movie is connecting with people at an emotional level (not necessarily an intellectual one) and given that they are prone to rhetoric rather than dialectic they perceive the emotional link to the story of a masculine, feet-of-clay but God-fearing man, doing his duty as something that Cannot be Countenanced™.

Throw in the political bullshit knee-jerking “oh I don’t like the war, so I just *sniff* can’t approve of a story at the ground level of a guy who did his duty in that evilbadwar” GTFO. Not much different that bitching about a story of the heroism and duty of the coal tenders in the Titanic who manned their posts to the end…because “the ship still sank! Engineer lied and ppl died!!!” and the usual suspects surface.

"All of these Sea Stories apparently started in bars after the third round in a bar and began with the words, "no shit, there I was." No one who has met a SEAL would be expecting what comes next to be anywhere near the truth. In fact I think the SEALs screen for it."

It’s like bitching at a Zebra over its spots…Couldn't agree more, Most of these bed-wetters whining about this e.g. DavidK are trying to leave the impression (“proven liar”) because the guy talked some shit that the story is "90% lies 10% fact when it’s more like the opposite.

They bring up the Ventura case and point out that because Ventura won, Kyle is a “proven liar”. Hoping to leave the impression that Kyle made the story up out of whole cloth. Folks want to ignore that witnesses testified in court to back up Kyles version of events.

Ventura’s attorneys won the case because the convinced a jury of Minnesota stump-humpers that because everybody who testified was drinking heavily at the time, they were all therefore completely unreliable and also they theorized that because Ventura was prone to bruising due to blood thinners, he couldn’t possibly have been knocked down by Kyle because pictures of Ventura taken afterwards didn’t show any bruising. Even then, it was a split decision that would have otherwise been no verdict, but Kyle’s attorneys agreed to accept because they thought they were on the right side of the split.

It was a good movie. It's really all about Kyle, not the Iraq war, and Cooper does a fantastic job of bringing him to life. Occasional Hollywood moments aside, it comes across as a very realistic portrayal, and Kyle has a lot of qualities that most guys wish they had: strength, guts, confidence, skill, stoicism, honor, etc. The movie is a celebration of these qualities.

That said, it is true that if Kyle has one major flaw it's his childlike, unthinking faith in his country and everything it does. His creed is "God, country, familY", not understanding that his country pretty much hates his God and doesn't think too highly of his (white, middle-class, non-deviant) family either. Duck Enlightenment had an on-point tweet that went something like "255 kills and he didn't even get a single Congressman? Whose side is he even on?".

It's easy and appropriate to admire Kyle for his courage and valor, but tragic that the US pisses away people like that on pointless sandbox wars and occupations. Makes me wish we could put a few guys like that on watchtowers along the Mexican border instead.

Even the America First Committee gave up its non-intervention efforts after the United States was attacked, saying:

"Our principles were right. Had they been followed, war could have been avoided. No good purpose can now be served by considering what might have been, had our objectives been attained. We are at war. Today, though there may be many important subsidiary considerations, the primary objective is not difficult to state. It can be completely defined in one word: Victory."

Its best to remember that the story is Chris Kyle's, it is all through his eyes. The reasoning is all his (with a Clint Eastwood filter). trying to take the movies perspective of the war deeper than that is a foolish. Vox's comments are fair enough but some some of the other comments here are way off.

The Movies is pretty damn good, if you do not want to see it over politics that is your problem not mine. If I did that I might never watch any movie ever. I suspect most here would have that same problem.

"Meanwhile, I found out the reason the Brits won the WW 2.0 was due to a homosexual nerd. Who knew?"Yea they hooked up a big garden hose south of London and when radar showed bombers coming he sucked all the bombs away.

"Lone Survivor wasn't exactly complementary to the SEALS."Lone Survivor is more about how the "I fight for the welfare state, single mothers, and puppies." military that wouldn't punish a black woman for failing merit based tests, yet expects the all white special forces to do things without expected support. There literally are no non Asian minorities in SF because the combined mental and physical merit based tests.

Americans don't use the term "paki".I have used the term paki before. As in " Sorry when we Americans say Asian we mean those able to create and sustain civilization not pakis or other sand n1663rs.

Here in NeoSparta, "meat eaters" are feted as heroes by neo-helots, or as comrades-in-arms by those initiated into the fraternity (veterans) who never seem to realize that segregating the subset of men who love battle and bloodshed only works if such segregation is a one-way ticket, and those directing the murder are themselves angelic.

As to movies (or any celebrity anywhere) it strikes me that in our social media/PR infused culture anyone who becomes notable has as much connection to reality, heroism, etc. as a frozen burrito has with real food.

"... one of Kyle's officers suggests that they could "win the war" by taking out the evil sniper who is upsetting America's peaceful occupation of Sadr City."

What's really stupid about that line is that the evil sniper in the movie that had competed in the Olympics was total fabrication. Kyle did apparently kill a guy at 2100+/- meters, but it wasn't a former Olympian sniper. Kyle's book says that the sniper known as "Mustafa" or whatever it was had been taken out by someone else... and there's no mention of that sniper being in the Olympics.

I have seen the movie. It was well-made, and emotionally powerful. Not a perfect movie but very good.

Except for the scenes about marksmanship training, and the scenes of actual sniping. Those parts weren't informative or convincing. The shooting range used during the training scenes looks to be no more than 100 yards long, if that. And my 9 year old niece can shoot better groups than the movie showed Kyle shooting. And, when you assign someone to watch a sniper's back while he snipes, that person doesn't play a GameBoy to kill time. Didn't convince me.

I don't want to hear that a character is called "Legend", I want to see how they earned the nickname. And this movie skips over that.

2 sources I know claim Ventura to big one of the biggest assholes they've ever met.Neigbor up the street growing up was a Vietnam vet, air force, and CIA. While in the CIA he went to Jesse's house over tax evasion and while there claimed that Ventura bitched and complained the whole time and even threatened him that he would come over and knock him out. At that point he told Jesse that wouldn't be a good idea because he would fill him full of more holes then swiss cheese with his 9mm before he ever got close. He then stated Jesse got really quiet then laughed and told him how he liked him...go figure.Other guy was player/coach of my soccer team who is a big shot at 3M. Said he played a golf foursome with Jesse and claimed he was nothing but a prick the whole time.Don't doubt the stories of either. Especially Mr. Madden, old school Jersey guy whois no bullshit. Hopefully Ventura doesn't read this and sue me for defamation of character.

It's not surprising that Big Hollywood, academia, and the chattering classes have a problem with both the film and Chris Kyle. The movie doesn't really examine the political issues with going to war, in favor of examining the life of Kyle. The Holllywood Left will never forgive Clint Eastwood for likening Obama to an empty chair, so of course they won't ever nominate him for best director again, but I doubt he cares.

Culturally, there is no way the Left can approve of Kyle:

He was a professional soldier who enlisted and took pride in his war skills, instead of protesting at the Occupy Wall Street encampment.

He was a Bible-believing Christian who carried a New Testament with him, and professed a belief in Christ's salvation, instead of spouting a fashionable atheism like Jesse Ventura now does.

He considered the Islamic enemy as savages and had a Crusader's Cross tattoo, symbolizing a defender of Christendom, instead of a tattoo of Che Guevara.

He married a woman, not a man, and took pleasure and pride in the birth of his children, instead of escorting his wife to a Planned Parenthood clinic because "this is such an awful world to raise a child in."

When an earlier girlfriend cheated on him when he was out of town at a rodeo, he beat the interloper up and threw him outside, instead of inviting him for a threesome and a potential "Brokeback Mountain" scene, then ordered her out instead of tearfully asking her what went wrong with the relationship.

He beat down bigger kids who bullied his younger brother as a kid, instead of urging a nonviolent teachable moment.

He liked to hunt and eat animal flesh, instead of protesting at vegan rallies.

He liked to deadlift big heavy weights, instead of going to a yoga studio.

He chewed tobacco instead of smoking a hookah pipe.

When suffering PTSD from the stress of continual deployments, he sought help and worked to help other vets, instead of throwing his medals on the steps of the Capital like John Kerry.

It was a good movie that honored a good, if imperfect, man. I didn't feel I wasted my money.

Re the Ventura decision, he is now trying to backtrack on taking money from Kyle's widow, and claimed on his podcast that the money all came from the publisher's liability insurance and didn't hurt her. In fact, the 8-2 split jury (in Ventura's home town, which tends to split Left) awarded Ventura $1.8 million: $500,000 for defamation and $1.3 million for unjust enrichment. Of that, only the defamation amount was paid for by the publisher's insurance; the rest, as well as her attorney's fees, must be paid out of Kyle's estate, which will affect his wife and kids.

Ventura is backtracking because a large part of his public persona is based on his "Navy SEAL background," but he's pretty much PNGed with the SEALs now.

On December 23, 2014, attorneys for Taya Kyle, as executor of Chris Kyle's estate, filed notice of intent to appeal with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Case Number 14-3876, so it ain't settled yet.

"How did invading Iraq help us advance our interests in the middle east?"

Apparently it is in the US interest to destabilize the whole area into a chaotic mess, empower and motivate the likes of groups like ISIS to wage medieval jihad on Christians, demolish their churches and behead their children.

A better comparison for movies than Seth Rogan's claim that it was like watching Tarantino's ridiculous rewriting of history "Inglorious Basterds" is probably the Ranger sniper in "Saving Private Ryan," who felt no conflict between killing his enemies, who were the agents of barbarism, and his Christianity.

Re "Apocalypse Now." It has one or two good scenes, but most of it's crap and he desperately needed an editor. Gravitas?

I never got the buzz about the movie. I found it to be tiresome and good for treating insomnia. I became annoyed with Martin Sheen's whispering voice over in the first five minutes. For me, the only thing that made it watchable was Robert Duvall's character. Charlie don't surf!

A commenter described a fight in the movie between the "Christian" hero and an "interloper" who had "cheated" with his "girlfriend." Actually, the Bible mentions only two genuine male-female relationships, betrothed and married. If a male fights with another male over a woman who is not his wife or his betrothed, "cheating" should have nothing to do with it, in the Christian world view. They can fight - as Christians - out of love and even out of desire and ambition, but if they are fighting over "cheating" and there is no betrothed or wife in the picture, they are not fighting as Christians. And they are both equally "interlopers" if their intentions are not Christian.

I've never commented here before, and I know I'm late to this thread...but I just had to jump in to point out that the premise of this post is false. Taibi's characterization of the line is not what happens in the movie. The commanding officer begins a mission brief by saying that securing an objective with "help win the war". Not "win the war", but "help win the war" - and the subject of the opposing sniper hasn't even come up yet. The goal of the mission is to clean out an area that has some of the last remnant of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Only after he describes what's been going on in the area do Kyle and his buddy discuss the possibility that Mustafa could be there. Oh, and though Kyle gets his nemesis, the SEALS basically get routed and have to retreat.

patrick kelly: "Apparently it is in the US interest to destabilize the whole area into a chaotic mess, empower and motivate the likes of groups like ISIS to wage medieval jihad on Christians, demolish their churches and behead their children."

Yup.

Apparently it's in the interest of Americans, who are Christians, that Christians be crushed. What?

That's the sort of thing that makes a man think furiously about whether what he "knows" is true. Because facts are emerging that mean it can't be.

Apparently it's in the interest of people who are seen as Americans, and who influence America's foreign policy, but who don't even like Christians, that Christians be crushed. Better.

That would be concordant with a lot of America's domestic policy preferences too.

patrick kelly: "I'm beginning to understand whys some call us the great satan......"

The Little Satan Rides on the back of the Great Satan, like Master riding Blaster.

Blaster is but a child.

Bless Master and be blessed by God; curse Master and be cursed by God. Obey Master in everything; fight when Master says, whom Master says. Blaster must obey till Blaster dies, then Blaster will get his reward; that is how Jesus wants it, according to Master's hirelings, such as John Hagee.

Blaster is but a child, but the chaos and the death and the cruelty and destruction are the same as if Blaster's naivety had been an evil tree bringing forth evil fruit.

robwbright: "What's really stupid about that line is that the evil sniper in the movie that had competed in the Olympics was total fabrication. Kyle did apparently kill a guy at 2100+/- meters, but it wasn't a former Olympian sniper. Kyle's book says that the sniper known as "Mustafa" or whatever it was had been taken out by someone else... and there's no mention of that sniper being in the Olympics."

We may have read different books. In the book, Kyle does indeed mention that "Mustafa" was killed by another sniper (he's not a major character like in the movie), but Kyle said he was identified in intelligence briefings as a former Olympic marksman who used his skills to kill Americans and Iraqi soldiers and police. It's there on page 139.

Post a Comment

Rules of the blogPlease do not comment as "Anonymous". Comments by "Anonymous" will be spammed.